Team Members

Dr. Jonathan Lamontagne is an Assistant Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Tufts University. His research focuses on planning and management of multisector, multi-scale coupled natural-human systems confronting change. He seeks to identify and characterize key uncertainties in order to provide actionable insights to decision makers in multisector systems. His past work has contributed to emerging Federal flood risk guidelines in the U.S., the optimal management of North American transboundary water-energy resources, and the development of a novel global change scenario discovery procedure. Dr. Lamontagne holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in environmental water resources systems analysis from Cornell University, and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of New Hampshire. Before joining the faculty of Tufts University, he worked as a postdoctoral scholar at Cornell University.

Dr. Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm is a hydrologist with research interests in modeling of surface and groundwater systems, climate-hydrology-vegetation interactions, water quality and modeling of the water-energy-food nexus. He has been a Principal Investigator in research sponsored by NASA, NOAA, NSF, USDA, USAID, the World Bank and other agencies, and has worked as a consultant in water resources projects in all five continents for over 20 years. He also spent 5 years as a civil servant (Lead Specialist) in the Water and Sanitation Division of the InterAmerican Development Bank in Washington DC, where he initiated and led the development of HydroBID and the portfolio of water-energy-food nexus projects in the LAC region. He is a member of the UN-appointed Science Panel of the Amazon (SPA) as subject matter expert in ecohydrology, climate change and nexus issues in the basin. He earned a Mechanical Engineering diploma from Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela (1987), a MS in Engineering from the University of California, Irvine (1989), and a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1993). Fernando is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and a Diplomate of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and the American Academy of Water Resources Engineers.

Dr. Gokul Iyer is an Earth scientist and team leader at the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI), a partnership between Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and the University of Maryland. Gokul has over a decade of experience in integrated modeling of energy, economy, climate, water, agriculture, and land systems. At JGCRI, Iyer leads and manages a variety of projects related to long-term energy system transitions; global, national, and sub-national deep decarbonization strategies; electricity capacity expansion; and energy-water-land system interactions. Iyer has a vast publishing record of over 70 peer-reviewed publications with more than a dozen in top journals, such as Science and the Nature family of journals. His work has been featured in The Hill, the Washington Post, and Scientific American, among others. Gokul was also a contributing author to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Dr. Kamal Chowdhury is an Assistant Research Scientist at the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) at the University of Maryland. He joined ESSIC as a postdoc in July 2021 and has been promoted to the current title since July 2023. Kamal’s research focuses on resilient operations and sustainable planning of water and energy systems considering the effects of transition to low-carbon, socioeconomic changes, regional coordination, and climate change. He also explores socio-environmental implications of water-energy infrastructure for a sustainable transition to low-carbon. These works support policy decisions at global to sub-national scales. As part of these works, Kamal develops and implements state-of-the-art models including integrated assessment models, power system planning models, and hydrologic-water-management models. Before joining ESSIC, Kamal completed postdoctoral jobs at the University of California Santa Barbara and Singapore University of Technology and Design. He holds a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Newcastle, a graduate certificate in engineering geology from University of Twente, and a B.S. in civil and environmental engineering from Shahjalal University of Science and Technology.

Brinda Yarlagadda is a PhD candidate in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. She develops and uses the Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM), a leading integrated assessment model. Her dissertation research is focused on the interactions between global trade and climate mitigation policies, and examines multi-sectoral implications of such policies on natural resource exporting and importing regions. Brinda is also a researcher at the Joint Global Change Research Institute. She has contributed to GCAM model development and policy analysis of natural gas trade, air pollution and climate policy co-benefits, and other energy system issues. Brinda holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering from the University of Michigan.

Abigail Birnbaum is a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University where she focuses on understanding risk and uncertainty in water resources management and planning. Specifically, her work focuses on the characterization, incorporation, and visualization of uncertainties acting at different scales in food-energy-water nexus decision-making processes. Abby holds a master’s degree in earth system science from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Cornell University.

Jake is a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University. His research interests include energy systems modeling under uncertainty and low-carbon electricity futures. He is interested in better understanding how detailed energy systems models can be incorporated into food-energy-water nexus frameworks to inform decision-making and better characterize uncertainty. Jake received his master’s degree in Civil Engineering from North Carolina State University, investigating future grid scenarios of the U.S. West Coast power system under stationary weather uncertainty. He received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering with an Aerospace focus from Case Western Reserve University.

Joudat Bint Khalil is currently a Faculty Assistant at the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) at the University of Maryland. Prior to this, she worked as a Project Lead at the Centre for Water Informatics and Technology (WIT) at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan. Her research areas include developing national energy models and designing low emission scenarios for climate mitigation. Her interests extend to understanding multisector dynamics, the interdependencies across sectors and their impact on sectoral transitions and sustainable resource management. As a part of her graduate research, she worked on ground-level ozone trends to comprehend the relative yield losses for crops such as maize, wheat and soybean during the winter smog season. Joudat holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Dr. Mengqi Zhao worked as a postdoctoral associate at the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) at the University of Maryland, before moving to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) as an Earth Scientist. Her research focuses on basin-scale integrated water resource management at the Food-Energy-Water Nexus. She is interested in studying the connections and feedbacks among environmental, ecological, social, and economic systems. Her work involves developing system dynamics modeling as an interactive tool for stakeholders to gain insights on adaptative management under future climate change. Her interests also extend to understand the impact of land use change on hydrologic patterns, physically based and gridded hydrologic modeling, and sensitivity and uncertainty analysis. Dr. Zhao holds a Ph.D. degree in civil engineering from Washington State University. She completed her M.S. degree in hydrology and water resources from Hohai University and B.S. degree in hydrology and water resources engineering from North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power.

Glorynel was a Ph.D. student in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, where she also served as a Graduate Teaching Associate. She completed her Ph.D. in May 2023 and joined as a Regional Energy and Community Engagement Expert, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) within NREL’s Energy Conservation and Storage Systems Center. Her research focuses on comprehensive analysis for water resource management, strategic planning, decision-making, and collaborations to drive sustainable transitions. Glorynel holds a master’s degree in urban-territorial planning, and a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of Puerto Rico, and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico. She has over ten years of professional experience, inside and outside of the academic environment. Before joining ASU, Glorynel was an IGERT Fellow at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, and as a Graduate Research Assistant at the National Institute of Energy and Island Sustainability. There she coordinated the Energy Stakeholders Forum for multi-sectoral dialogue on Puerto Rico’s energy policy. She has participated in numerous initiatives to advance sustainability, including first Puerto Rico’s Sustainable Agritourism Guide and the first estimate of the Puerto Rican’s Water Footprint. Glorynel also served several terms as a member of the board of directors of the U.S. Green Building Council, Caribbean Chapter. As an interdisciplinary pracademic, Glorynel is committed to the effective transfer of scientific knowledge outside the academic environment, to use this science to support informed decision-making.